Hot on the heels of the recent OneFS 9.11 release sees the launch of four new PowerScale hybrid and archive series hardware offerings. Between them, these new H310, H3100, A310 and A3100 spinning-disk-based nodes add significant blended capacity to the PowerScale stable.
Built atop the latest generation of Dell’s PowerScale chassis-based architecture, these new H-series and A-series platforms each boast a range of HDD capacities, paired with SSD for cache, a Sapphire Rapids CPU, a generous helping of DDR5 memory, and ample network connectivity – with four paired nodes all housed within a modular, power-efficient 4RU form factor chassis.
Here’s where these new platforms sit in the current PowerScale hardware hierarchy:
These new platforms will replace the PowerScale H700, H7000, A300, and A3000 systems, and further extend PowerScale’s price-density envelope.
The PowerScale H710, H7100, A310, and A3100 nodes offer an evolution from previous generations, while also focusing on environmental sustainability, reducing power consumption and carbon footprint. Housed in a 4RU chassis with balanced airflow and enhanced cooling, these new platforms offer significantly greater density than their predecessors – plus are ready to support Seagate’s 32TB HAMR HDDs when those drives become available later this year.
These new nodes all require OneFS 9.11 (or later) and also include in-line compression and deduplication by default – further increasing their capacity headroom, effective density, and power efficiency. Plus, incorporating Intel’s 4th gen Xeon Sapphire Rapids CPUs and the latest DDR5 DRAM offers greater processing horsepower plus an improved performance per watt.
Scalability-wise, both platforms require a minimum of four nodes (1 chassis) to form a cluster (or node pool). From here, they can be simply and non-disruptively scaled two nodes at a time up to a maximum of 252 nodes (63 chassis) per cluster. The basic specs for these new platforms are as follows:
| Hardware Class | PowerScale H-Series (Hybrid) | PowerScale A-series (Archive) | ||
| Model | H710 | H7100 | A310 | A3100 |
| OneFS version | Requires OneFS 9.11 or above. | Requires OneFS 9.11 or above. | ||
| CPU | 16 Cores @ 2.9GHz, 30MB Cache | 8 Cores @ 1.8GHz, 22.5MB Cache | ||
| Memory | 384GB DDR5 DRAM | 96GB DDR5 DRAM | ||
| Platform | Four nodes per 4RU chassis; upgradeable per pair; node-compatible with prior generations. | Four nodes per 4RU chassis; upgradeable per pair; node-compatible with prior generations. | ||
| Depth | Standard 36.7 inch chassis | Deep 42.2 inch chassis | Standard 36.7 inch chassis | Deep 42.2 inch chassis |
| Max cluster size | Maximum of 63 chassis (252 nodes) per cluster. | Maximum of 63 chassis (252 nodes) per cluster. | ||
| Storage Drives | 60 per chassis (15 per node) | 80 per chassis (20 per node) | 60 per chassis (15 per node) | 80 per chassis (20 per node) |
| HDD capacities | 2TB,4TB, 8TB, 12TBTB, 16TB, 20TB, 24TB | 2TB,4TB, 8TB, 12TBTB, 16TB, 20TB, 24TB | ||
| SSD (cache) capacities | 0.8TB, 1.6TB, 3.2TB, 7.68TB | 0.8TB, 1.6TB, 3.2TB, 7.68TB | ||
| Max raw capacity | 1.4PB per chassis | 1.9PB per chassis | 1.4PB per chassis | 1.9PB per chassis |
| Front-end network | 10/25/40/100 GigE | 10/25 GigE | ||
| Back-end network | 10/25/40/100 GigE, Infiniband | 10/25 GigE, Infiniband | ||
In concert with the generational CPU and DRAM upgrades in the new PowerScale chassis platforms, OneFS 9.11 software advancements also help deliver a nice performance bump for the H71x and A31x hybrid platforms – particularly for sequential reads and writes.
The PowerScale H-series platforms are designed for general-purpose workloads, offering flexibility and scalability for a wide range of applications including file shares and home directories, editing and post-production media workflows, generative AI, and PACS and genomic data with efficient tiering.
In contrast, the A-series platforms are designed for cooler, infrequently accessed data use cases. These include active archive workflows for the A310, such as regulatory compliance data, medical imaging archives, financial records, and legal documents. And deep archive/cold storage for the A3100 platform, including surveillance video archives, backup, and DR repositories.
Over the next couple of articles, we’ll dig into the technical details of each of the new platforms. But, in summary, when combined with OneFS 9.11, the new PowerScale hybrid H71x and A31x platforms quite simply deliver on efficiency, flexibility, performance, scalability, and affordability!